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Saturday, November 29, 2008

Vijay Salaskar: Life and death by the gun

He was said to be the last of Mumbai's encounter specialists until a hail of bullets brought him down on Wednesday. He is supposed to have killed nearly 80 alleged gangsters.

A 1983 batch officer, Salaskar started off as a sub-inspector. But his ability to sniff out criminals quickly made him a favourite with the police top brass, who used him and other cops to get rid of many underworld criminals.

His first encounter was in 1983, when he shot dead one Raja Shahabuddin, who had a number of cases against him. Gangsters like Amar Naik, Jaggu Shetty, Sadhu Shetty, Kundan Singh Rawat, Zahoor Makhanda ended up as statistics in Salaskar's growing encounter list.

In 1997, he was accused by underworld don Arun Gawli of trying to eliminate him in a fake encounter after the cop gunned down his aides Sada Pawle and Vijay Tandel. Gawli went to the extent of writing to the government that Salaskar would bump him off in a fake encounter. But Salaskar did not face any departmental proceedings. He, however, was frequently in the news for alleged fake encounters.Courtesy: Mail Today